


Love You With My Glassheart

by beggars_visored



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Normal High School, High School, M/M, Rain, School Uniforms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3260192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beggars_visored/pseuds/beggars_visored
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is just trying to make it through his last year of secondary school when a certain curly haired wonder comes into his life. Suddenly it's not just about surviving, it's about living.</p><p>Title from Leona Lewis' song "Glassheart"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love You With My Glassheart

It’s eight in the morning on a Monday and Louis is already calling it quits.

Rolling over to smack the snooze button on his alarm for the tenth time since it went off (a good forty-five minutes ago), he tries to ignore the fact that first hour starts in twenty minutes and he’s still just wearing a pair of boxers and a t-shirt with “I’m Always A Posh Spice” written on it. He does not feel that the t-shirt is telling the truth right now, considering that his hair looks like he just stepped out of a wind tunnel.

Throwing his comforter off and wincing at the sudden rush of room temperature air, he sits up wearily and puts his glasses on to check the weather outside. Lord knows he can’t do contacts right now. It’s raining, of course. Because why not, right? It’s only the first day of term, the last first day he’ll ever have before he goes off to uni a year from now, and although he’s thanking his lucky stars that said day is only fifty-two weeks off, he can’t shake the idea that he still has to get through this year first and that it’s going to be abjectly horrible.

Stretching upwards and yawning so hard he swears he can hear his jaw pop, he pads over to his hamper and starts putting on his bloody school uniform. His only comfort in wearing it is that everyone else has to as well, so he doesn’t look that stupid, but nobody ever said that wearing a puce colored cardigan over a shit-brown collared shirt and dirty trousers was ever a fashion hit. He tried for the disheveled look during tenth year, but he just looked like a sad Justin Bieber fangirl so that was over almost as soon as it began.

Going over to the mirror and haphazardly dragging a comb through his rat’s nest of a hairdo, he eyes himself again with disdain. He would never claim to be good-looking, not even on a day where he was wearing his tightest pair of jeans and that Ramones shirt that makes his arms look twice as muscular as they really are, and today he just looks plain hideous. He takes in his short stature, all five foot something of himself that is shorter than any boy he’s ever liked, and the way his butt juts out into space. He tries to pull it in, but that ends up pushing his stomach out, so he just gives up and tries to wiggle his pants down slightly lower than they sit right now.

He harumphs as he turns away and heads down the stairs. No wonder he can’t get a boy to like him, he looks like a fucking oompah loompah on steroids. Not even his mum would find him attractive, if she were telling the truth.

Stopping in the kitchen to grab a piece of toast, he plants a kiss on the forehead of each of his sisters, shouts a goodbye to his mum, and heads out to the car.

Normally, he’d be trying desperately to shelter his head from the rain and protect the perfect arrangement he has going on, but today it’s just awful, and he doesn’t even try, just walks to the car at a leisurely pace.

By the time he gets in to start the engine, he’s soaked to the bone, and his hair is plastered against his face. He looks like a wet dog, which he feels like is a pretty accurate comparison, or maybe a pile of mud given the awful color scheme of the school. Taking one last look in the rearview mirror at his reflection, he throws the car in gear and starts to back down the driveway.

Just as he’s about to turn onto the street so he can speed his way off to school, he spots a swiftly moving shadow out of the corner of his eye and slams on the brakes. A boy on a bicycle whizzes past behind the car, right where Louis was going to back out. “Oi, watch it!” Louis hollers, even though the boy can’t hear him. “Bloody idiot,” he mutters, and starts off down the street.

He arrives to school with a total of two minutes to spare before first hour, which, to his chagrin, is a literature class. Because who wouldn’t want to indulge in some Shakespeare and Norman Mailer at seven in the morning?

Shaking his head like a wet dog and checking his reflection in one of the mirrors, he slips into his desk just as the late bell sounds. Of course the only seat left is in the front, and he tries his best to avoid eye contact with the teacher and shrink as far into the floor as possible. He gets a syllabus with a full list of the works they’re going to read that semester. Louis runs down the list of names, trying for any familiar ones. Toni Morrison, James Joyce, Honore Balzac, Theodore Dreisher, Edith Wharton, Jhumpa Lahiri… He can’t even pronounce half of them, let alone read their stuff. How the bloody hell is he supposed to do this?

His musings are interrupted by a stack of books dropped on his desk, the height of which slightly nauseates him. Exactly what he needs on first day of term, to look like he’s checked out half of the school’s library.

Second hour is Spanish or some shit like that, which he’s taken for five years now and still doesn’t understand a word of, but he sits there and responds with the obligatory “Yo knowo” when prompted by the teacher. Her look of encouragement has nothing on his perfectly withering stare. By the time third hour rolls around, he feels as though he were hit by an eighteen wheeler and then run over multiple times. Everything in him hurts, and he can practically feel the contents of his brain flooding out of him in a giant pile of mush.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, he enters his modern computer technologies class to find that it’s been overrun by the footie team. Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, and Niall Horan are swinging in circles on their computer chairs high-fiving and speaking in that unintelligible caveman language that all jocks use with absolutely no sense to it. Louis just stares at them for a minute and then looks around for the nearest escape. The teacher, a short older woman with a terrible nose job, introduces the class to the course and passes out the typical list of requirements and programs that they’ll be using on their “journey through the computer”. Louis wants to stab himself with the headphone jack. Niall looks as though he’s in a different universe, as he’s essentially staring at the blank computer screen with the interest of a cat who’s discovered a laser pointer, scanning the black abyss with the most serious interest. Liam is on his phone, blatantly in front of the teacher’s face, chewing gum so loud it makes Louis wonder if the kid next to him is cracking his knuckles or something. Zayn, meanwhile, is already on the computer, browsing the latest issue of Playboy. Classy.

She gives them several minutes of free time at the end of class, so Louis logs onto the computer and surfs around for a while, looking at the latest chart updates and making a mental note of the newest songs he has to download. Looking over his shoulder at the three musketeers behind him, he sees that they’ve begun a game of paper football, featuring some poor kid’s personal organizer. He hums to himself in a frustrated manner, trying to log onto his email in a vain attempt to break through the school’s firewall. Using a little bit of code manipulation, he manages to reset the webpage and gain access, and blocks the server for BBC sport for the heck of it. Why not mess with the meatheads a little?

The bell rings and Louis shuts down the computer and hurries out of class before anyone else manages to get their things together. It’s the last class before lunch, and he knows that if he can make it through a session of chemistry, he’ll be free to hide out in his car and eat that sandwich he managed to throw together the night before.

It’s a pretty average group once he gets settled. There are a few girls who he recognizes from the Battle of the Bands night the year before when they were this pop group who thought they were Girls Aloud but really just warbled about butterflies and saluting and shit. Then there’s the meathead group again, who he could’ve sworn had flunked biology the year before, but whatever. He takes a seat at an empty lab table, the way he likes it, and starts to unpack his things when the door flies open.

“Sorry I’m late! This is organic chem, right?” Louis looks up to see a tall, curly-haired boy with doe eyes and a smile wide enough to make him feel ill standing in the doorway as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Of course, his luck, he takes the empty stool next to Louis. He tries smiling at him, but Louis just picks up his books and moves them one stool over, rolling his eyes at him. The boys seems unperturbed, just opening his spiral notebook and copying down the information on the board.

They all get up and form what sort of resembles a line to get their textbooks, and of course he ends up stuck next to weird kid who has no concept of personal space curly boy. He makes a decided attempt to face away from him, making it clear that he has absolutely no interest in talking to this kid.

“Hi, I’m Harry! What’s your name?” Louis looks around for a second until he realizes the kid is talking to him, and he just scoffs and folds his arms, turning away from the new kid.

“Don’t bother with him, mate,” Niall interjects, “he’s just got something up his arse.”

“Yeah, and he’s not exactly upset about it, know what I mean?” Liam says, elbowing Niall and the meatheads guffaw as one giant, unintelligent unit.

“Stuff it, Payne,” Louis snaps, looking as threatening as he can without making a complete fool of himself.

“Hey, I’m just saying, if you like a stick up your arse, that’s your prerogative,” Liam says back and then the meatheads laugh again.

“You’d be lucky if you were big enough for me to see it in the first place, much less like it,” Louis shoots back and the meatheads sort of ooh in this way that implies that they aren’t really threatened but are just biting back.

“Oh, and you’ve seen my manhood, have you, Tomlinson?” Liam says, chuckling. “Well, clearly not,” he amends and then winks at Louis as he says “Can’t really miss it, if ya know what I mean.” Before Louis can haul off and punch him they’re all next in line to get their books and it distracts them enough that Louis can snag his and then slink off back to his little corner of isolation. Harry pulls out the stool next to him and plops down, ignoring the fact that Louis purposefully moved away from him.

“He’s a dick, man, don’t listen to him,” he says. Louis just stares at him.

“I don’t need your advice, mate,” he snaps back, “but thanks for playing the hero anyway. Go put it on your resumé.”

For whatever reason, Harry continues to ignore Louis’ verbal abuse and just smiles. “There’s no need to fight me, Tomlinson,” he says. Louis stiffens when he hears his name, but listens as Harry continues, “I’m not like them, I swear.”

“Oh, please,” Louis grunts, collecting his things so he can be out right as the bell rings. “You’re just like them, you barely know me and you’re already acting like you know everything about me. I appreciate your concern or whatever you wanna call that act you’re pulling, but save it for someone who cares.”

The bell rings and Louis is out of his seat like a flash, heading for the door. He can’t help but hear Harry call “See you tomorrow!” as he pushes through the throngs of people on their way to the cafeteria. Someone needs to tell the kid to chill out before he annoys the wrong person.

* * * *

Even though it’s technically against school policy, Louis heads out to his car and turns the radio on as he unpacks his lunch. Something about being able to listen to his music during his one moment of peace is what gets him through the day, and it means he doesn’t have to be around people. Everyone thinks he has no friends, which isn’t exactly true. To be fair, he finds them incredibly overrated to begin with, and he prefers his own company, so he spends most of his time making friends with people who don’t actually exist. He’s not crazy, they’re not like in his head or something, they just live in the movies he watches.

When he was six, he started spending time at the local movie theater watching screening after screening of everything that was being shown. By the time he was thirteen, they realized he knew the place better than anyone else, and gave him a job. They weren’t going to get rid of him, so they figured they might as well pay him for being there. He started out sweeping the theaters after showings, but now, five years later, he’s basically running the whole operation, manning the single projector they have every day after school. It’s not much cash, but it’s something, and he enjoys getting to watch the movies and do his homework up there in the peace and quiet.

In summary, he likes being alone, and he’s good at it too. He has a handful of girls he’ll smile at in the halls, like that Eleanor girl he dated for two minutes in middle school, but for the large part everyone ignores him and he ignores them right back.

The whole gay thing didn’t exactly help things either. He was actually doing pretty well for himself for a while, having been a member of the wrestling team and a potential star on the football squad. If he’d kept playing, he might even be center today. But then he decided to take a risk and assume that his success on the field would outweigh whatever was happening and told his teammate, the one he’d had a crush on and jacked off with a couple times, that he was gay and then all hell broke loose. Soon everybody knew and his teammates started avoiding him in the halls and treating him differently at practice. He got the message, and quit a week later. He went from being the star athlete who could have conquered the school one day to being the quiet, gay movie nut he is now. Which is what it is, he supposes. But it does kinda suck.

Taking another bite of his sandwich and wiping grape jelly from his chin, he leans the chair back and stares at the ceiling of his car. It’s his oasis, the one place he can go and not feel like he’s being judged or anything. He’s totally normal when he’s inside that little bubble and it’s good enough for him.

“Hey!”

Louis jumps several feet in the air and smacks his head on the ceiling in a desperate attempt to locate the body behind the voice. He rubs his aching head and looks out the window to see that stupid little curly haired twat grinning at him through the glass, motioning for Louis to let him in. For some reason, he does, even though his mother taught him never to let strange men with creepy tendencies to get in a car with you. Harry climbs into the passenger seat pleasantly, and takes a bit of Louis’ crust and eats it while still smiling.

Louis stares at him for a minute and then just asks, “What the fuck, man?”

Harry giggles in a slightly girlish way and just smiles at him. “I should be asking you that, Tomlinson. The crust is undoubtedly the best part of the sandwich.” He reaches for another portion of it, but Louis snatches it away before he can grab any.

“What do you want with me, anyway?” Louis snaps, angrily tossing the sandwich back in its brown paper bag.

Harry shrugs and leans back in the passenger seat. “I dunno, just saw you and figured I’d see what you were up to.”

Louis just sort of balks at him for a minute or two and then shakes his head in frustration. Clearly there is absolutely no helping this kid. “What’s your name again?” he finally asks. “Harry, right?”

Upon hearing his name, Harry perks up and extends a hand with a warm smile. “How do you do?” he asks in a mock proper accent.

Louis tries to ignore him, but he can’t resist taking his hand and giving it a brief shake. Harry’s smile widens even more after that, and he turns in the seat so he’s facing Louis more directly.

“You seemed kind of upset in chemistry today,” Harry says nonchalantly as he reaches down for another piece of crust resting on the paper bag. Louis doesn’t bother to yank it away.

“Yeah, well, that happens,” he mutters, scratching some jelly off of the corner of his mouth.

Harry looks at him with big, innocent eyes. “But why?” he asks. Louis stares at him with the least impressed look he can manage.

“What is this, Jeopardy?” Louis grumbles, leaning back slightly in the driver’s seat.

“Nah, mate, Jeopardy’s the one where you ask the questions cause you get the answer in advance,” Harry interjects. Louis turns to stare at him with a blank expression. How this curly-haired mess of a person exists is beyond him.

“That’s not the point,” Louis continues, not breaking his stare. “The point is that I don’t need to answer to you and you don’t really have a right to be asking me all of these personal questions when I don’t even know you.”

Harry looks down for a minute, like he’s going to say something, and then looks back up at him. There’s something in his eyes that Louis can’t identify, some sense of sadness or longing that unsettles him for a bit.

“How am I supposed to get to know you then?” Harry asks finally, with an even yet quiet tone that makes Louis’ heart skip a beat.

Before he can answer, the bell rings. Groaning, Louis shuts off the radio and opens the driver side door. “And we are once again summoned to the devil’s lair,” he says. “You coming, Styles?”

Harry smiles at him and reaches for the door handle. “Right behind ya, Lou.”

Something about that makes Louis’ heart do somersaults. Maybe this won’t be such a bad year after all.


End file.
